RMweb Gold Popular Post Darius43 Posted February 22, 2019 RMweb Gold Popular Post Share Posted February 22, 2019 Nice article on the BBC News website today:- How to build the perfect model railway Cheers Darius 19 5 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium Ian J. Posted February 22, 2019 RMweb Premium Share Posted February 22, 2019 (edited) I saw that too. It seemed quite odd to see it. I'm so used to articles being aloof about railway modelling that one that isn't and feels more complimentary caught me out... Edited February 22, 2019 by Ian J. 5 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold tractionman Posted February 22, 2019 RMweb Gold Share Posted February 22, 2019 yep, good to see this, and it comes up on the BBC News front page under 'Features & Analysis' so pretty prominent. cheers, Keith 1 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold PaulRhB Posted February 22, 2019 RMweb Gold Share Posted February 22, 2019 Good article and I like the model vs prototype slider picture. Even Mick ‘Mr Yellow’ gets in on the act near the end! 2 2 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Re6/6 Posted February 22, 2019 RMweb Gold Share Posted February 22, 2019 Thanks for that Darius. A nice positive piece and the video is excellent, but why oh why is the need for sub-titles on so much these days. Can we not understand our own language by just listening carefully? Rant over! 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium Compound2632 Posted February 22, 2019 RMweb Premium Share Posted February 22, 2019 I did like the sentence: "Even the trains are in keeping with the era." 1 5 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium Neil Posted February 22, 2019 RMweb Premium Share Posted February 22, 2019 I thought it was a good serious piece and I liked the way that the time taken over the small details was presented as a positive thing rather than being strangely obsessive. It seems surprising when the hobby is shown by the wider media in a positive light, but perhaps this shouldn't be so. Looking at the number of magazines on the newsagents shelf shows that railway modelling isn't a niche hobby. 3 8 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators AY Mod Posted February 22, 2019 Moderators Share Posted February 22, 2019 Well done to the SRSG; a great advert for the hobby. 1 11 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium coronach Posted February 22, 2019 RMweb Premium Share Posted February 22, 2019 A very good article. I liked the comment about the range of skills needed 1 4 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Enterprisingwestern Posted February 22, 2019 RMweb Gold Share Posted February 22, 2019 1 hour ago, Re6/6 said: Thanks for that Darius. A nice positive piece and the video is excellent, but why oh why is the need for sub-titles on so much these days. Can we not understand our own language by just listening carefully? Rant over! Sounded foreign to me, glad of the sub titles! Nice to see the use of a professional actor, presumably his 40th step? Mike. 1 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gordon A Posted February 22, 2019 Share Posted February 22, 2019 1 hour ago, Re6/6 said: Thanks for that Darius. A nice positive piece and the video is excellent, but why oh why is the need for sub-titles on so much these days. Can we not understand our own language by just listening carefully? Rant over! For those who are hard of hearing??????? Gordon A 4 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Clearwater Posted February 22, 2019 Share Posted February 22, 2019 Agree with comments above and I love the interactive feature where you can drag between the real image and the model. One perhaps for someone with the picture skills of Andy Y to try in the online version of BRM on a Peterborough North or Little Bytham? David Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
AJ427 Posted February 22, 2019 Share Posted February 22, 2019 An excellent article, very prominently placed, with in-depth and refreshingly serious content. 1 1 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steamport Southport Posted February 22, 2019 Share Posted February 22, 2019 3 hours ago, Re6/6 said: Thanks for that Darius. A nice positive piece and the video is excellent, but why oh why is the need for sub-titles on so much these days. Can we not understand our own language by just listening carefully? Rant over! Possibly because of the way most people look at the internet. Most now look at it on their phones or tablets in places where having volume is frowned upon or they are listening to music as well. People sitting at home looking at the internet on a proper computer are very much the minority now. Jason 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold ikks Posted February 22, 2019 RMweb Gold Share Posted February 22, 2019 2 hours ago, Gordon A said: For those who are hard of hearing??????? Gordon A Yes, I am one of them.............my recommended deaf aids cost over $7000.00, just a bit beyond me so subbies really help me enjoy things. Mike 1 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
OhOh Posted February 22, 2019 Share Posted February 22, 2019 6 hours ago, Re6/6 said: Thanks for that Darius. A nice positive piece and the video is excellent, but why oh why is the need for sub-titles on so much these days. Can we not understand our own language by just listening carefully? Rant over! In addition to those not lucky enough to be able to listen carefully, the BBC News website is viewed by a global audience, so for many, English will not be their first language, and a fairly heavily accented English will be quite hard to understand. A lot of my English speaking overseas friends often find the written word a lot easier to take-in. 1 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium Coryton Posted February 22, 2019 RMweb Premium Share Posted February 22, 2019 I was very pleasantly surprised by this. I'm not sure I've seen an article like this in the mainstream media before - just done totally straight as a description of something interesting and worthwhile that some people do - no attempt to belittle anyone, or even use any one of the rail-related puns that must be taught in a module in journalist school. The only thing that stood out as a little "off" was the "Even the trains are in keeping with the era." line mentioned above. On the other hand, if it wasn't for that, I'd be wondering if the article had been written by one of the modellers themselves rather than a journalist as a piece of low-effort journalism. (I had that experience for a professional society magazine once - yes we'd like to publish something on what you're doing - please write an article about it in the third person as if we had written it....) Come to think of, there was no attempt to link it in to the Great Model Railway Challenge, but then again perhaps they wouldn't given that it's on a rival channel. 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Luke Piewalker Posted February 22, 2019 Share Posted February 22, 2019 There's normally a piece on the Scottish news at least about the Model Rail Scotland show, nice to see they've taken the opportunity to expand it into a more general piece. 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Administrators Phil Parker Posted February 22, 2019 Administrators Share Posted February 22, 2019 19 minutes ago, Coryton said: On the other hand, if it wasn't for that, I'd be wondering if the article had been written by one of the modellers themselves rather than a journalist as a piece of low-effort journalism. (I had that experience for a professional society magazine once - yes we'd like to publish something on what you're doing - please write an article about it in the third person as if we had written it....) As opposed to "research our topic from scratch and then let us moan you didn't get it right." Sadly, journalism has to be done on the cheap nowadays because people refuse to pay for it. The days of magazines or even newspapers having rooms full of people who can get away with knocking out a fully researched single page a week vanished decades ago. Now the advice is very sensibly to write so the text can easily be plonked on the page. It might be edited, but at least there is a starting point. Not ideal, but pay peanuts, get monkeys, and readers won't even pay peanuts nowadays. 22 minutes ago, Coryton said: Come to think of, there was no attempt to link it in to the Great Model Railway Challenge, but then again perhaps they wouldn't given that it's on a rival channel. From the article: 'Alloa' won't be there this year, but more than 50 layouts will be on display, including one from Aberdeen Model Rail Club which won The Great Model Railway Challenge on Channel 5 last year. 1 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium Coryton Posted February 22, 2019 RMweb Premium Share Posted February 22, 2019 10 minutes ago, Phil Parker said: As opposed to "research our topic from scratch and then let us moan you didn't get it right." Sadly, journalism has to be done on the cheap nowadays because people refuse to pay for it. The days of magazines or even newspapers having rooms full of people who can get away with knocking out a fully researched single page a week vanished decades ago. Now the advice is very sensibly to write so the text can easily be plonked on the page. It might be edited, but at least there is a starting point. Not ideal, but pay peanuts, get monkeys, and readers won't even pay peanuts nowadays. I understand that but what I personally don't like is the appearance that the article has been written by the journalist when it hasn't. I don't see what would be wrong with saying something like "Such-and-such tells us about the layout they built" and making it clear who wrote it. And the occasion I was referring to wasn't "nowadays" - it was when most people had never heard of the internet and the idea of getting your news on-line was a long way away. 11 minutes ago, Phil Parker said: From the article: 'Alloa' won't be there this year, but more than 50 layouts will be on display, including one from Aberdeen Model Rail Club which won The Great Model Railway Challenge on Channel 5 last year. I stand corrected on that then. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
OhOh Posted February 22, 2019 Share Posted February 22, 2019 36 minutes ago, Coryton said: I understand that but what I personally don't like is the appearance that the article has been written by the journalist when it hasn't. I don't see what would be wrong with saying something like "Such-and-such tells us about the layout they built" and making it clear who wrote it. Journalists can't be railway modellers? As to "Even the trains are in keeping with the era"; remembering that the article isn't written exclusively for those in the know, I'd take that remark as an acknowledgment of the achievement of also having modelled the trains correctly. 2 3 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium Coryton Posted February 22, 2019 RMweb Premium Share Posted February 22, 2019 4 minutes ago, OhOh said: Journalists can't be railway modellers? As to "Even the trains are in keeping with the era"; remembering that the article isn't written exclusively for those in the know, I'd take that remark as an acknowledgment of the achievement of also having modelled the trains correctly. Of course they can but I'm not sure how you got that from what I said. Perhaps I could have put it more clearly - I wasn't intending to refer to this article in particular but the general idea of copy being provided to papers or magazines as if written by their staff when it wasn't. As for the "even the trains" line, it just seemed a bit odd - as if getting the trains right was some kind of added bonus. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
pete_mcfarlane Posted February 22, 2019 Share Posted February 22, 2019 3 minutes ago, OhOh said: Journalists can't be railway modellers? As to "Even the trains are in keeping with the era"; remembering that the article isn't written exclusively for those in the know, I'd take that remark as an acknowledgment of the achievement of also having modelled the trains correctly. And a lot of people happily mix up trains from different eras or even parts of the World. Witness Jon Snow's layout, which features on the TV from time to time. The idea that you lock down your rolling stock to a very specific era might not have occured to some people, and so needs explicitly stating. I thought the BBC piece was really good. 1 4 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium Compound2632 Posted February 22, 2019 RMweb Premium Share Posted February 22, 2019 15 minutes ago, OhOh said: As to "Even the trains are in keeping with the era"; remembering that the article isn't written exclusively for those in the know, I'd take that remark as an acknowledgment of the achievement of also having modelled the trains correctly. Sorry, I flagged that up because it tickled me. I wrote a sentence, which I then deleted before posting, along the lines of the priorities of non-model-railway-enthusiast viewers being different to those of enthusiasts: they're probably more impressed by the washing on the line than by knowing that every locomotive was based in Fife at the period modelled. That is a tribute to the overall quality of the modelling and attention to detail on Alloa, not a criticism of either "them" or "us". Some journalistic effort must have gone into the piece, even if the Alloa team are allowed to speak for themselves - someone had to make the choice that this is newsworthy and go to the effort of setting the piece up. At the very least, a professional film crew must have visited the layout? And how much more superficial these days is the coverage of a typical political event? 1 3 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold ianLMS Posted February 22, 2019 RMweb Gold Share Posted February 22, 2019 I thought the article was very positive and another opportunity for this great hobby to be showcased to a wider audience, regardless of who wrote it! If it was the journalist who may or may not have any experience of railway modelling, then excellent work. If it was the club member(s), then even better considering writing news articles may not be their main skill set! Well done SRSG and the BBC! Ian 1 7 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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